l, fold it over, and place it on a truck
to be carried to the machine sewer. The weekly wages before the bonus was
introduced had been $5.98 and were now with the bonus $6.75, though
workers sometimes tore more than the 1190 sheets required by the task and
made from $7 to $7.50 by a week's work. The quick workers occasionally
stopped for 10 or 12 minutes in the morning and ate a light lunch. The
task was severe for the muscles of the hand and forearm, and apt to cause
swollen fingers and strained wrists, though the girls bound their wrists
to prevent this. All the work was done standing. The loosened starch
flying here was annoying, both to the tearers and the girls at the
sewing-machines.

Since the time of the inquiry, all the girls engaged in tearing have been
relieved and transferred to other positions, and the work of tearing has
been done by men.

Here the sheets are turned back and hemmed by workers who sew tandem, one
girl finishing the broader hem and the other the narrower one, their task
being 620 sheets a day. The girls at the machines formerly earned $7.50,
and now earn with the machine set at the higher rate of speed from $8 to
$11. They stop for 10 minutes in the morning, and clean the machines and
clear away the litter around them. The sewing and stooping are
monotonous, and the work on bonus here is apt to cause nervousness,
because of uncertainty occasioned by frequent breakages in the
machines.[54]

There is a room at one side of the department, where the girls were to
rest when they had completed their tasks. But the present foreman, not
understanding the system, comes to the rest room and hurries them out
again, even after the 620 sheets are finished.[55] One of the girls in
the department, an Italian girl, who used to run far beyond the task at
the machine, had fallen ill under the strain of the work, or at least
left the factory looking extremely ill and saying that she had broken
down and could not remain. Another unfortunate result of the speed at the
sewing-machines is that the girls are more apt than before to run the
needles through their fingers.

The folding in this department is also exhausting, and the management is
trying to find a better system of conducting this process than that now
employed. The folders here stoop and pick up the sheets and fold them
lengthwise and crosswise. The task is 1200 a day; and the wage with the
bonus comes to between $6 and $7 a week. But after the bonu